What to do until (or as?) the messiah comes

At-home worship from Sunday, May 24
Ascension Sunday

Entering a quiet time (if you have a candle, light it and let these words quiet your heart):

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary -- pure and holy, tried and true;

and with thanksgiving I'll be a living sanctuary for you.

Opening Thoughts and Prayer

Today is the last Sunday of the Easter season.  Thursday was “Day of the Ascension of our Lord.”  That’s the day the Christian church celebrates the story of how 40 days after his resurrection from death, Jesus is raised from Earth to heaven – which means not so much that he is now up there and not down here, as it means he is present in a more universally intimate way to all of Earth, beyond the limits of what we can see and touch. 

In the ancient world “the heavens” is where the gods live and from where they constantly influence life on Earth.  So to say Jesus is raised to heaven is really to say he is now in that place of the gods, influencing life on Earth as they were said to.

We pray:

Loving and holy One, 
God of all creation, crafter of the cosmos,

hear our prayer

and let us find comfort, not fear

in the immensity and unending mystery

of all you have made.

Lord of this Earth, 
you who came to show us

the presence and the unchanging good purpose of God

in making the Earth and all its creatures and us to be,

hear our prayer

and help us to confess 
how we have missed the mark and made a mess of so much,

help us also to hear and accept 
your words and the truth of forgiveness.

Holy Spirit 
at work in all the world, at work in us and in others,

help us to pause …

and be silent …

and to quiet our pride, our fear and our shame 
long enough, to be aware

of the holiness, 
the light, 
the connection with God, 
the connection with all God has made

that is at the heart of who we are.

Gather us in, and help us to know

who we are with you and with one another. 

In the name of Jesus, the one we call Christ,

and by holiness of spirit in us as in others.  Amen.

Song:  “Be Still”

There is not a single heartache that our Lord will not heal.

There is not a single sorrow that His heart does not feel.

There is not a single problem; there is not a single care

There is not a single burden that He will not share.

Be still, be still, be still and listen.

Be still before the Lord.

Be still, be still, be still and listen.

Be still, and hear His voice.   Be still.

He brings us hope and healing rest from toil and pain and tears.

He brings a peace to calm distress and banish all our fears.

He never bids us go away, nor turns a deafened ear,

His tender voice calls one and all; we need but only hear.

Be still, be still, be still and listen.

Be still before the Lord.

Be still, be still, be still and listen.

Be still, and hear His voice.  Be still.

                                                                                       

Reading:  Acts 1:1-11

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles was written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke, and the two books are part 1 and part 2 of the single, continuing story of the good news of God’s kingdom appearing on Earth. 

In part 1 – the Gospel, Jesus announces the kingdom of God and begins to gather and teach a community to live it out.  Now in part 2 – the Book of Acts, what Jesus began is carried on by the community of those who follow him.  At the beginning of the Book, the author prepares us for the transfer of spiritual power from Jesus to his followers.

Dear Theophilus:

In my first book I wrote about all the things that Jesus did and taught from the time he began his work until the day he was taken up to heaven.  Before he was taken up, he gave instructions with the help of the Holy Spirit to those he had chosen as his apostles.

For forty days after his death he appeared to them many times in ways that proved beyond doubt that he was alive. They saw him, and he talked with them about the Kingdom of God.  And when they came together, he gave them this order: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift I told you about, the gift my Father promised.  John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

When the apostles met together with Jesus, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time give the Kingdom back to Israel?  Will we have a king of our own again?”

Jesus said to them, “How and when the Father will bring all things to their good end is not something you know.  But I tell you this: when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  After saying this, he was taken up to heaven as they watched him, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They still had their eyes fixed on the sky as he went away, when two men dressed in white suddenly stood beside them and said, “Galileans, why are you standing there looking up at the sky?  This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way that you saw him go to heaven.”

Reflection

One of the stories told here at Fifty is about a young child who started coming to worship here a few years ago with no previous introduction to church or anything related to it.  She was brought by her mother to learn about God, and Jesus, and living a Christian life.

The young girl – maybe 5 or 6, or even 7 or 8 – was unsure of what to expect, but prepared for anything.  She sat through the service with her mom.  She was struck by the distinctive look and warmth of the sanctuary, the friendliness of the people, the easy flow of the service, and the tall, dignified, white-haired man in a long white robe who talked a lot from a raised platform at the front of the sanctuary and whom everyone accorded great respect.

It was unlike anything the little girl had seen.  Later when her mom asked her what she thought and if she had any questions, there was only one thing on her mind.  “That tall man at the front all dressed in white,” she said, “is that God?”

Not likely.  Even though I – and maybe other ministers, sometimes act as though we are.

But isn’t this the way we often see God?  Raised up above us, dazzling white (in every sense of the word) and wise, commanding respect from all.

What is your image of God?  In your mind, where does God dwell today?  And how does God appear to make things good for all?

When I was a child and even far into adulthood, this -- a dazzlingly white-robed, glorious person raised up above us all, is also how I imagined Jesus at the end in the story about his ascending from Earth to heaven.  And how I imagined he will be known when he comes back.  His work on Earth all done.  Glorious and dazzling.  Crown of gold on his head.  Royal scepter of power and authority held firmly in his hand.

But is that really how he appears at the end to his followers as he ascends to the heavens?  And is that the way they will see him as he returns to keep unveiling God’s presence and God’s kingdom on Earth?  To make Earth good for all God has called into being?

In the Bible the risen Jesus still has the scars and wounds of his crucifixion in his body – in his hands, his feet and his sides.  Probably the stripes of the whip on his back as well.  And does he ever have a gold crown, or just the blood marks and bruises from the crown of thorns that was forced on his brow.  And a royal scepter in his hand?  Or does he still appear at their side with a servant’s towel draped over his arm, forever ready to wash the feet of those who are ready to betray and deny him?   

Why wouldn’t he?  Because isn’t that how his work and God’s work is done on Earth?  And the world, as bad as it can be, is made good, as good as it’s meant to be?

When ministerial robes first began to be worn in the church they were meant to be representative of the dress of servants of different kinds.  Some robes were patterned after those of lawyers and scholars, who gave their lives to learning and speaking the truth to the world regardless of the cost.  Others were patterned after the simplest kind of servant garb – a simple tunic that was often the only thing worn by any household servant.

I wonder, if we were to start all over designing ministerial robes today, what they would be patterned after. 

Hospital scrubs, maybe – the kind worn by everyone on the medical team from nurses and doctors to cleaners and porters?  The lab coat of a medical researcher giving their life to developing a COVID-19 vaccine for others?  Maybe the company shirt and uncomfortable face mask and gloves of a grocery cashier or pharmacy clerk serving the public in risky times.  The yellow-x’ed safety vest of a garbage collector, handling and hauling away everyone’s discarded trash to keep our homes and streets safe and clean. 

All the people we call “heroes” these days.  And I wonder if it’s more to the point and more helpful to drop the word “hero” and call them instead “real and true human beings” living out the love and care of neighbour and of others that true human being is about.

Who are some of the people who have been “true human beings” for you or for your family these days?  Who’ve restored your faith in humanity by being a friend of neighbour no matter the cost?  Who have given you a whiff of hope for how true and human and good your own life can be?  And already is?

When people saw Jesus they were attracted to him because of the deep and true humanity he lived out among them.  He knew God’s way of making the world good, and he spoke of it wherever he went no matter the cost.  He invited and gathered people across all kinds of divides into the most unlikely and healing experiences of community.  He helped people know much they really could care for others without it being the end of their world.  He set people free from the weight of their sins, their broken past and the way they used to be, and from the prison of forever holding onto other people’s sins against them.  He set people free from going back always to the past, and to look for God instead in the future that would continue to unfold for them and for others as they learned to follow him and walk in his way.

And isn’t this how the will and way of God are done on Earth as in heaven?  How the world is made good as God desires it to be made, and how the Christ – the living Word of God, is seen again and again among us and within us unveiling God’s kingdom on Earth for all?

He comes and it comes not with a bang but with … not with a whimper, but maybe as a whisper.  Not in a blaze of overpowering glory from somewhere above and beyond us, but by the power of the holy healing whisper all over the face of Earth, of true and new humanity being lived out among us and by us, over and over again rising from us like a prayer from Earth to heaven, and coming back to us as the answer from heaven to Earth. 

Thanks be to God.

Hymn:  “Make Me a Servant” (to read as a prayer)

Make me a servant, humble and meek
Lord, let me lift up those who are weak
And may the prayer of my heart always be
Make me a servant; make me a servant
Make me a servant today.

Closing Thoughts:

The conclusion to a sermon prepared by Rev. James Eaton of Albany, NY for his congregation for this Sunday:

 
The message of the angels (who appeared beside the disciples as they stood staring at the sky) is one we need to hear as well: don’t stand around waiting for Jesus.  [New life beyond what is changing and dying] comes from moving to make his vision a reality. Don’t wait for Jesus; don’t stand around. Wait for the power of the Spirit and when you feel it, live it. Don’t wait for Jesus, share the news that we can live for him today, loving God, living from God, loving others, letting that love blossom into those fruits of the spirit today. Our future isn’t just reopening, it’s renewal of our life as the body of Christ. Don’t wait for Jesus: he’s already going ahead, making the way for us, loving us, inspiring us. 

Amen.

Blessing:  “Go Now in Peace”

Go now in peace; never be afraid;
God will go with you each hour of every day.
Go now in faith -- steadfast, strong and true;
Know God will guide you in all you do.
Go now in love, and show that you believe;
Reach out to others so all the world can see:
God will be there watching from above.
Go now in peace, in faith and in love.

I will not leave you orphaned ... (Sunday, May 17, 2020)

Fifty United Church At-Home Morning Worship: Sunday, May 17

Settling in:  Making time for God

This is God’s wondrous world: the birds their carols raise;

the morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.

This is God’s wondrous world: O let me ne’er forget

that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.

Taking note of where we are

Re-opening!  What a magical and powerful word that has become for us.  Phase One of re-opening has begun in Ontario, and we’ll see how it goes. 

How does re-opening make you feel?  Relieved?  Hopeful?  Anxious?  Afraid?

In so many ways we’ve been learning how much we are not in control of.  How powerless and vulnerable we are – all of us together. 

This week while cleaning a long-neglected corner of my study, I found a copy of part of a poem called “God Knows,” written in 1908 by Minnie Haskins, a British poet and sociologist, quoted by King George VI in his 1939 Christmas Day broadcast.  It’s a thought worth dusting off.

“I said to a man who stood at the gate of the year,

‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown,’

and he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness

and put your hand into the hand of God. 

That shall be to you better than light

and safer than the known way.’”

Opening prayer

(From David Adam, The Edge of Glory: Prayers in the Celtic Tradition)

I weave a silence on to my lips

I weave a silence into my mind

I weave a silence within my heart

I close my ears to distractions

I close my eyes to attractions

I close my heart to temptations

Calm me O Lord as you stilled the storm

Still me O Lord keep me from harm

Let all the tumult within me cease

Enfold me Lord in your peace

Scripture Reading:  John 14:15-21 (Common English Bible)

In the Gospel of John, when the time comes for Jesus to be arrested, tried and put to death, five chapters – chapters 13-17 – are devoted to a long good-bye between Jesus and his disciples, in which he reminds them of how deep his love is for them (and for all the world, really) and he prepares them for moving on (still with him actually) after he is taken from them. 

Depending on the translation, the passage we read today is sometimes titled “Jesus promises the Holy Spirit” and sometimes “I won’t leave you as orphans."

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion, who will be with you forever. This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be with you.

“I won’t leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” 

Reflection on the Reading

Apart.  But not alone.  You see the slogan everywhere these days.  On the street as the name of a community chalk-art project sponsored by a church youth group, in a newspaper ad for an Apart But Not Alone bracelet being sold as a fund-raiser for a local charity, in a TV ad urging people to reach out online for mental health support and resources.

Every time I join a United Church Zoom webinar about Ministry in a Time of Pandemic, I hear the refrain that “we’re not all in the same boat, but in our separate little boats we’re all on the same sea, and together in the same storm.”

Do you feel alone these days?  In the little boat you are in, do you feel too distant from others?  Or maybe overwhelmed some days by all the things you’re now expected to do, and take on and do for others – by all the weight of anxiety and care your little boat is loaded with?

When Jesus was preparing to be taken from his disciples, one thing he told them as he prepared them for that was, “I will not leave you alone – or as our translation this morning puts it – I will not leave you orphaned.  I will come to you.  You will know me, and together we will know that we dwell together in God.”

Being orphaned back then was a terrible thing.  Society was so totally tribal and familial in structure and expectation, that if ever you were cut off – orphaned in any way – from family and from your natural household, were really were alone, without any means of support, and without any place to be.

It’s not surprising that in their history and in their Scriptures the people of Israel are commanded over and over again to notice of, and to take care of – how does the phrase always go? – “the widows, the orphans, and the aliens” (the exiles, the refugees and the immigrants) among them – three groups of people with no one else on their side, who God’s people are to reach out and give special care to.  “Because,” God says, “you were once like them – alone, without help, and with no place to be.  I took care of you; now you take care of them; give them a place and a way of being and living well with you, as was done and given for you.”

Do you feel especially alone or orphaned these days by not having a computer, or an email account, or some of the social media connections that others have? 

Or does being disconnected from the noise of the world allow you to find a deeper connection and bond with those who are closest to you?  With your own higher self?  With God?

“I will not leave you alone and orphaned”, Jesus says.  “I will come to you.  You will know me, and together we will know that we dwell together in God.”

It’s not just now, and not just because of COVID-19 that people feel alone or somehow suddenly orphaned.  Even in “normal” times, all kinds of people feel alone and outside the circle of our basically comfortable society.

I think of people and families living in poverty year after year.  Of people whose home is either a shelter or the street.  Refugees, immigrants – legal or otherwise.  I think of my own father’s family who came here from Germany in 1929, legally but then also a little bit illegally when they left south Ontario and hopped a train out to western Canada, where for at least 15 years through the Dirty Thirties and the war years they were outsiders, aliens, and made to feel afraid by people who didn’t want them to be there, didn’t want to have to accept them.  Thank God for those who did, and who were as Christ – were as Jesus to them, helping them to know we all dwell together in God.

As I shared some of these thoughts with people this week in preparation for today, I received an email.   I’m glad you’re focusing on the image of being orphaned, it said.  “I have spent most of my life feeling like I was alone so I really relate to … being orphaned.  Feeling adrift in the world, cut off from supports and caring community … not really accepted for who I am and need to be.  There is no worse feeling than being in a crowd - maybe even a family - and feeling totally alone.”

Jesus says, “I will not leave you alone and orphaned; I will come to you.”  I wonder in how many ways, through how many lives, by way of how many little human gestures of support and care Jesus comes to each and every one of us.

“You will know me,” he says.  I wonder if we sometimes need to remind ourselves of just how, and how often Jesus is present to us.

“And together we will know that we dwell together in God.”  I wonder how often we – how often you – are the presence of Jesus to someone else, reminding them and helping them know that they are not alone, not at all orphaned, but held always in God’s care as well.

We want to know we’re not alone.  It’s the very first line, in fact, in our Creed: “We are not alone, we live in God’s world.”  And the last line, too: “In life, in death and in life beyond death, we are not alone; thanks be to God.”

Closing Hymn to Read as a Prayer

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

Melt me, mould me, fill me, use me.

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the living God, move among us all;

make us one in heart and mind, make us one in love:

humble, caring, selfless, sharing,

Spirit of the living God, fill our hearts with love!

Blessing

Go now in peace; never be afraid;
God will go with you each hour of every day.

Go now in faith -- steadfast, strong and true;
Know God will guide you in all you do.

Go now in love, and show that you believe;
Reach out to others so all the world can see:

God will be there, watching from above.
Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.